OK, so I have to admit something.
This "Director of Men's Ministry" gig has it's perks.
Like business cards.
Really nice looking business cards.
And they say "Director of Men's Ministry" right on them.
Right now a collective "snort of disbelief" from anyone who knew me before I became a Christian can be heard all the way from South Carolina to Pennsylvania.
I have arrived. And I've got the cards to prove it.
Matter of fact, it's actually a big box of cards.
Problem is - I really have not yet had much use for these cards.
Sure, they've came in handy on a couple of occasions when I needed something to scribble down a short reminder on, but I'm pretty sure that was not the intended purpose when Danielle passed them out.
But tonight, one actually found a tangible use.
Tonight was "Date Night" for Deena and I.
We were blessed with a sitter for the first time in a long time and headed out for Dinner And A Movie.
We decided to venture into Olive Garden and considered it a potential mistake as soon as we pulled in.
We knew that we had limited time to make it through our dinner and still catch the movie, and the parking lot was PACKED.
We decided to stay and give it a try.
Upon entering, we were told we'd have about an hour wait. We considered maybe trying somewhere else but we again decided to stay.
I didn't think that we'd make it but Deena had faith.
As we stood there leaning against the wall waiting for our turn to be seated, we saw a few friends from Grace.
Aaron L and his wife Kelly came by and were seated off to the right side of the building.
Brian H (who posts the Verse Of The Day here on MenOfGraceChurch.com) and his wife also came by and were also seated off to the right side of the building.
It was about that time when we noticed a young couple off to the side, also waiting for their turn to be seated.
They had two young children with them.
To be blunt, this family had the look of out-casts when compared to their peers in the crowded waiting area.
But both mom and dad were great w/their kids. They interacted. They held. They hugged.
Then I noticed what dad had around his neck.
It was a pentacle, the five pointed star that modern pagans utilize as their holy symbol.
They were wiccans.
At this point, I'm going to go off on a tangent here:
Not many people ever knew this at the time, but I was a wiccan for almost 10 years before I accepted Christ.
I have a 1 foot tattoo of a pagan "god" on my right calf that now serves as both a constant personal reminder of my fallen stature and as a testament of God's capacity to forgive.
But, as a wiccan, I used to actually worship that false "god".
I remember when, days before I accepted Christ, I met w/a local pastor and asked him if God would really truly actually forgive me for that abomination on my leg.
I cried when he put his hand on my shoulder and said "yes".
Let me tell you a little bit about wicca and who stereotypically becomes a wiccan.
Wicca today (or witchcraft...or just "the craft') is a modern attempt to re-connect w/ "old world" religions.
It's an eclectic mix of nature-based occult ritual, divination, invocation and the worship of ancient "gods and goddesses" (such as the Greek, Norse or Celtic).
As a rule, they believe in doing no harm and being non-judgmental.
They don't sacrifice anything.
It's not satanism - or at least not to it's those who practice it.
Wiccans do not knowingly worship satan.
Wiccans do not even believe in the satan of Christianity.
And that is exactly where the prince of lies wants them.
Wicca utilizes all the tools of satan, the spells, the divination, the worship of false gods....and then candy coats it w/ a nature-based deception of "harm no one, accept all, live and let live".
This all may sound "fringe"...but wicca is on pace to become the THIRD LARGEST RELIGION IN THE US BY 2012
Who becomes a wiccan?
That's easy.
It's the people that you miss.
Often, they are the outcasts.
Those who did not grow up with perfect families.
Those who are poor.
Those who have had great pain in their life, but normally a dark pain...one you normally would not get up in front of a church and share in a testimony.
Those who feel resentment at being shunned.
Those who just simply do not "fit in" and can not relate to those who were raised in a stable home.
If you ever went to a pagan/wicca event, like this one held locally every year, you might just think they were all "freaks".
And I'm fairly certain that that is what the Pharisees would have called the crowd around Jesus in Matthew 9:10-11
Luke 19:10 states that the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.
It's my opinion that one of the main reasons that wicca is growing so large at this time...is because Christians are falling short at directly reaching out to those who live the life of the "outcast of society".
New age, "spiritual", occult, pagan, wiccan, etc....it's all the same and it's no longer fringe.
It's mainstream and it's best-seller.
We seem to be missing this cancer right under our noses.
And the lost are being scooped up in it's net because they see it as a means to acceptance and self-worth.
As Christ's servants, we need to focus serious thought and prayer towards developing a large scale, direct, loving, non-adversarial plan for countering this "loss of the lost" to modern paganism.
But for now, as a former hater of all things Christian I think the best thing we can do is try and make a concentrated individual effort at making sure we don't overlook someone who may not "fit in"..and try to demonstrate, by example, Christ's acceptance and love of them.
Christ just might use that as the gentle touch that will eventually allow them to feel his full embrace.
Oh, and w/regards to "Date Night" at Olive Garden -
As opposed to being seated on the right side of the building where I could have attempted to discreetly bounce a crouton off of Brian's shiny head from a few tables away...
We were seated on the left side of the building.
Christ seated that wiccan family right beside us.
I was going to keep this to myself, because I didn't want to trumpet about our "good deed"...but it just seems right to share the details.
I wrestle sometimes between sharing info about good deeds and keeping them to ourselves.
On one hand, a good deed reported..is something others could try as well.
On the other hand, it's a textbook example of being a modern day Pharisee and trying to make yourself look pious.
In this case, we'll share it, be we can't take any credit for it.
Christ put the pieces together.
We just lucked into being one of the pieces.
So, walking up to their table and starting a conversation while they were eating seemed unrealistic and intrusive.
Deena and I thought, as we shared the same waitress w/them, that we should discreetly pay for their meal and just ask the waitress to deliver them a Grace card.
Maybe this could serve as a kind and gentle nudge that would eventually be the first in a chain to help bring these folks home.
When I looked, I realized that I didn't have a card on me.
I prayed that if God wanted us to do this that I'd find a card.
I looked again, and stuck in the middle of my stack of plastic and paper was one slightly beat up Grace card.
We truly serve an amazing God.
(And we made it to the movie on time!)
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